


Safe In My Arms

by A_Suga_Cookie



Category: NCT (Band), NCT 127 - Fandom, NCT Dream, NCT U - Fandom, WAYV
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - Prison, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood and Injury, Crying, Dreams and Nightmares, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, Gunshot Wounds, How Do I Tag, I Don't Even Know, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M, Mentioned NCT 127 Ensemble, Mentioned NCT Dream Ensemble, Mentioned NCT Ensemble, Moon Taeil is Whipped, No Plot/Plotless, Not Beta Read, Past Drug Use, Police Brutality, Qian Kun-centric, Rare Pairings, Sad Qian Kun, TBT, This Is STUPID, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, Why Did I Write This?, kunil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-19 12:54:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29874981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Suga_Cookie/pseuds/A_Suga_Cookie
Summary: “Yangyang!” Kun screams out as he crouches down and hugs the younger man close to him. He can feel the younger shaking feebly as he whimpers incoherently underneath his breath and curls himself into the fetal position in the crook of Kun’s neck. The latter looks up to the guard looking at him with a menacing glare with a Glock 42 pointing directly at Kun and Yangyang.“Taiyi-Ge”, Kun whimpers out brokenly as he reaches out for his gege. Taeil felt his heartbreak into a million pieces when he heard the younger’s voice quiver dolefully and Kun’s watering doe-like eyes.Or Kun has a nightmare and Taeil is there to make sure he is always safe in his arms.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s), Moon Taeil/Qian Kun
Comments: 1
Kudos: 17





	Safe In My Arms

**Author's Note:**

> Important notes at the end!
> 
> TRIGGER WARNINGS: MENTIONS Of STRONG LANGUAGE, DRUG USE, ABUSE, GUNS, BLOOD, MAJOR CHARACTER DEATH, POLICE BRUTALITY, KILLING, AND FIGHTING. IF YOU ARE SENSITIVE ABOUT THESE MATTERS, YOUR HEALTH COMES FIRST AND IS THE UPMOST IMPORTANCE TO ME! PLEASE CLICK OFF AND I'LL SEE YOU IN THE NEXT ONE!
> 
> I HOPE YOU GUYS ENJOY!
> 
> Twitter: A_Suga_Cookie1  
> CuriousCat: A_Suga_Cookie1
> 
> -ASC ❀◐⌣◐

Kun exhales out softly as he careens against the snowy winter-white, decorticating wall, losing his grip on the handle of the knife. He breathes out shakingly, creating little clouds. Tiredly, he drops his head back as he lets the small, tattered pocket knife clatters against the translucent, glass floor, and echo reverberate across the isolated room. The walls were torn up with one particular wall covered in tally marks of how long Kun has been in this prison. The fluorescent lights hung just above his head as they flickered eerily, his shadow radiance against the fragmented, mirror floors surrounding him. Little dry splatters of his own blood decorated the room like cherry-red roses on a wilted, darkened field of thorns, his empty canvas of skin painted ugly with a variety of healing wounds. 

Kun grimaces in pain and shifts slightly and stares back at the uniformed, stoic guards. Their pupils circling around him like a starving cougar eyeing their defenseless prey as they watch his every single movement and breathing pattern. He simply just smirks at and laughs bitterly.

It was always the same story with the exactly copied ending. Kun acts up and gets into a fight with the guards. As result, they try to drug him and toss him into another empty clean, psychiatric slate, only for it to be completely lambasted by the little pocket knife he was secretly gifted by Xiaojun for his 24th birthday, one of his medicated-induced rage attacks. He was just a chess piece in the government’s vicious, manipulative game of Chess. Once they checkmate, they simply just reset the board and Kun goes through the cycle of suffering all over again. 

Ctrl. Alt. Delete. 

This is almost like second nature to Kun. He was transported to Visionary State Prison when he was barely 17, caught by an underground cop while he was in the middle of a purchase. He was actually a very bright student growing up, a teacher’s favorite. He was in the top 1.0 percent of his grade and was on the road to being accepted to one of China’s prestigious colleges, Tsinghua University. He was the boy everyone knew would do amazing things in his mere future. But much like many orphans on the streets who were desperate to feed themselves and the people they care about, he turned to drugs behind the scenes. Behind each gentle, dimpled smile he gave to the teachers was a forced smile he gave every time he sold a packet of heroin and MDMA and the scars from being assaulted by angry clients His fingers always left traces of white every time he would pick up his brush to comb his hair for school. 

He met the others when he saw the youngest member of their dysfunctional family, Yangyang was being mobbed by a group of rival gangsters. The others and himself came to the youngest’s aid. Kun became basically their leader and a parental figure in all their lives after that. From attending Yangyang’s middle school graduation to tending all night to an ill Xuxi to comforting Sicheng from his recurring night terrors, he was always their pillar when they needed it. And they were his. They shared now broken film of running across the grass fields barefoot and collapsing in each other’s arms, laughing with no care to the world while bathing lazily in the sun’s rays. No matter if they were in a group or by themselves, trouble seems to follow them like a shadow but so did their love for one another. They only had each other in this frigid, lonely world.   
Slowly after Kun was arrested and placed in prison, the rest of his family began to slowly join him in the tattered, gray uniforms and steel bars of torture around their unmarked wrists. 

“They always had a thing for getting in trouble no matter what. Those brats never listen to me”, Kun laughs bitterly before biting his lip and looking down as he plays with the sharp edge of the pocket knife. He peeks to the side to see Ten’s former cell, only to be greeted by an empty cell. He sighs and runs his hand through his grimy hair roughly, closing his eyelids. 

He watched them all die, no matter how close he was to save them at the end. The memories still keep him up in an insomniac state every single night. Playing back at him like a horror movie with no happy ending. People may have gone and come in his life, but those memories sickly stick to him like vicious, sour honey.

Those memories of dragging Hendery out of the frigid case of water and trying to thump his unconscious, lifeless chest. Those memories of banging against the scorching, metal doors of the prison’s mechanical room until his fists turn into a bouquet of blue and purple bruises. He watches helplessly as Xiaojun collapses in his own puddle of sweat. Those memories of Kun trying to rip the heavy changes and desperately slapping and shaking Sicheng as the younger stares back at him in drug-induced hypnosis. Those memories of the tears blinding his eyes as he washes the gruesome wounds littering a shaking Xuxi.He cries softly against Yukhei’s back as the water around him slowly turns pungent like the acrid waters of the Red Sea. Those memories of Ten looking back at him with blank eyes and tears staining his porcelain as he turned his back against his family. 

All he had left was Yangyang. The youngest was the only last living memory of their family that Kun can hold on to. A smile softly ghosts his face when he remembers the younger puffing out his chest in endearing pride as he showed him a special drawing among the walls of different arrangements of hues. 

It was all 7 of them. 

Together. As a family. 

Kun traces his fingers gingerly around the faces of each of his family members as each of their last words echoed loudly in his head like a broken cassette tape, his heart pounding painfully against his ribcage in longing and waited for yearning.

Hendery told Kun he was his warmth. 

Yukhei told Kun he was his guardian angel. 

Sicheng told Kun he was his pillar when he couldn’t stand up anymore. 

Xiaojun told Kun he was thankful for him. 

Ten told Kun to forgive him. 

Yangyang told Kun he loved him as the latter cradle him back into the safety of a dreamless sleep after the younger had another nightmare. He softly hums an old Chinese melody he used to sing to all of them all the time when they felt homesick or couldn’t fall asleep in the taut, rotting prison bed by themselves. 

Kun mindlessly thumbs the air in a caressing-like motion as he tries to thumb away from the younger’s like he was trying to thumb away from the younger’s grubby Chestnut-brown hair out of his eyes as if he wasn’t just next door, locked up in his own hell. 

Kun never really understood pain and death until they placed their hands on each of 6 of his family members. It was only Yangyang he was able to protect from its infamous hideous mitts. 

His thoughts were brutally interrupted when he heard a swathe of yelling outside his door. An untold, irksome feeling rushes down his body, causing goosebumps to rise unpleasantly against his scarred skin as he rushes toward his door the best he could in his restricting chains. He balances in his tippy-toes and places his hands gingerly on the rustic window frame as he tries to see through the small, dust-tinted peephole. A blur of royal-blue tinted uniforms and hues of brown and black shades of hair racing in cacophony across his vision. His hurtling heart drops nauseously to his stomach when he hears a familiar voice slur out quietly among the havoc. 

“I’m sorry! Please stop hurting me. T-T-T-Too many pills. I feel dizzy. I-I’m sorry!”

It was Yangyang. 

That was the moment Kun saw all 50 shades of red. He began to bang on his alloying door over and over again so loudly that he wasn’t able to hear his own voice echoing ominously throughout his padded room. He wasn’t aware that one of the officer's badges began to beep before a monotonic voice made the whole hallway go quiet for a moment. 

“Report for room 1011, prisoner 01011996 in solitary confinement for disorderly behavior. In a possible response to prisoner 10102000”.

“I got him. Over”. 

Kun heard a jingle of a pair of keys for a moment before the little trap door on his prison door unlocked his window and he was forced to make eye contact with the kind officer who actually treated him and the rest like actual humans when they were alive. She helped him through each death and gave him something to wish on that he thought he lost when he came to prison. 

Hope. 

She crouches to his eye level as her slim fingers elegantly sweep an astray piece of her silky jet-black behind her neatly-tied hair before smiling gently at the distraught prisoner. 

“Kun…”

“Officer Joy, what are they doing to Yangyang?”, Kun blurts out in anguish before Officer Joy could finish her sentence. He watches in a distilled silence as her smile drops slowly into a wistful frown and bites her lip in hesitation. 

“Kun. I’m sorry”.

“W-What do you mean? Officer, what’s wrong with him? Please tell me! Please!”, Kun begs in almost hysterics. Kun learned the hard way that begging was a forbidden taboo in prison and shouldn’t even be considered his last resort even if his life depended on it. But he was so sick of worry for the youngest at the moment, he could get on his knees on the blatant prison floors and beg shamelessly, kissing the soul of the officer’s shoes just to assure that Yangyang is safe in his arms. 

“He was acting up this morning because he didn’t want to take his medication and he wouldn’t quiet down. And the Warden...lost control. He and the other officers used corporal force on him and made him take his medication. But they mistaken his medication with another prisoner and accidentally gave him double the dose but they doubled the dose, not thinking twice about it because they thought it could knock him out for a few hours. They are taking him to solitary confinement right now. I’m so sorry, Kun. I tried my best to stop them. I really did”, Officer Joys finishes off quietly while looking down at the ground. 

Kun looks back at Officer Joy in pure horror as a rush of emotions hits him like a vicious tsunami, waiting to knock him out. His face pales and bile rises up his throat odiously. Kun grips onto the bars of the window tightly, causing his knuckles to grow a translucent white as he tries to stop himself from visibly shaking in as he impels himself to look into the pitying officer in front of him. 

“You tried to poison him? All because he was acting up, only to lock him up in an empty room?!? By himself?! You know he has Peter Pan syndrome and Severe anxiety! You can’t throw him in there like a torn-up ragdoll when you basically overdosed him. He is barely 19. He’s a child. A fucking child”, Kun growls out angrily and Officer Joy only looks back at him speechlessly in sorrow as tears began to fog in her auburn-brown eyes at the younger prisoner’s words. 

“Do you want him dead like the rest of my family? You have seen how fucking much we both suffer in your hands but you want to kill a child too? The only thing I have left?! You are fucking murderers!”, Kun screams out as he bangs the metal door harshly, ignoring the sharp stinging sensation that radiates through his palm as blood gushes out of his new gash. With anger pumping through him violently, he grabs his pocket knife from his pocket and starts to pick feverishly at the rustic cylindrical lock. 

“Yangyang!”

“G-Gege! Kun-Ge. I want my gege! Please!, he heard Yangyang wail weakly out before the hallway filled up with the younger's grim screaming as one of the officers grabbed him by his hair and harshly threw him against the wall. Kun watches in terror from the cell as he watches this devil beat his youngest over and over with his metal police baton. The tarnished lock underneath his bruised fingers shatters open and he swings open his prison door as his screams merge with Yangyang’s pained cries and the surprised gasps of the other guards. He saw red when he saw the barely conscious younger whimpering as his own blood ran down the sickly-yellow wallpaper as purple and green bruises painted his once clear skin. He began to walk forward when he felt a pair of arms wrap around him protectively as he looked down to see Officer Joy desperately trying to hold him back. 

“Kun! Don’t!”

Kun felt an intemperate fire roll off his body in waves when he saw one of the senior guards pull the younger up by his hair and force him to look him in the eye, leaving a hand-shaped bruise on the younger’s chin. He looks over to Kun and Officer Joy briefly with a menacing glare. 

“Joy, get out of here and go do something useful”, he barks out. Kun felt Officer Joy freeze underneath him and looked between him and her boss with tremendous consternation staining her pretty features before she released her grip on Kun. If Kun’s veins weren’t pumping in anger and nauseating anxiety for his youngest, he would have felt bad for the fearful female officer. The senior officer stares at her disappearing back before turning his malevolent attention back to a shaking Yangyang. 

“You little bitch. Always making the guard's life hard. You are just as bad as the rest of them”, he sneers as he tightens his grip on the younger’s chin and Yangyang struggles to open his mouth as a trickle of blood runs down his face like spoiled blackstrap molasses. 

“K-K-K-Kun-Ge. I-I-I want my gege. Don’t hurt my Ge, please”, he slurs out in a whisper, and Kun felt his heartbreak into a million pieces and his breath unknowingly caught in his lungs. Oh, how much he just wants to run over and just snatch up the youngest and protect him in his arms. 

“You want your Gege?”, the guard asks mockingly before he slaps him so hard that the younger falls against Kun’s chained legs.

“Yangyang!” Kun screams out as he crouches down and hugs the younger man close to him. He can feel the younger shaking feebly as he whimpers incoherently underneath his breath and curls himself into the fetal position in the crook of Kun’s neck. The latter looks up to the guard looking at him with a menacing glare with a Glock 42 pointing directly at Kun and Yangyang. 

“Shut your fucking pretty mouth before you join him and the rest of your family”, He sneers as petty sarcasm dripped from his voice. Kun flexes his jaw angrily as he grips onto Yangyang protectively. 

“In fact, I’ll reward you. Probably the best day of your life. Losing yet another member of your pathetic family. 7 must be an unlucky number for you, Qian.”

Kun growls as he clenches and unclenches his fist in unspoken rage. He heard Yangyang whimper beneath him and fist the front of Kun’s cheap material of his prison uniform as he hides his face. Kun reaches over the best he can in his handcuffs and comforts the younger for a moment before he looks up as he stares down the guard like a rampant predator eyeing its quaking prey. Kun smirks and laughs mirthlessly. 

“Your dick must not be big enough to satisfy clearly if you get turned on by beating up an innocent child. Not to mention being so proud of killing 6 people just to satiate your santist kinks, huh?”

The guard snarls as he brings his gun up to Kun’s temple, barely an inch from each other’s face. Kun only smiles bitterly as he spits at the senior guard’s feet in response. 

“Go ahead. Shoot me then. Scared your perfectly-aligned badges will get stained in my tainted blood? Don’t want to get in trouble, now do we?”, Kun teases. The guard’s hand in the trigger shakes in belligerence as his stubby finger ghosted over the trigger, waiting to be pulled. 

Kun shields himself over Yangyang and closes his eyes as he awaits the horrid and fatal blow. Finally, he can escape this hellhole. Lucas always told him that death doesn’t hurt as much as it seems. He can finally see Hendery and Xiaojun smile again and joke about how much they didn’t miss him in heaven while they hug him like long-lost brothers. Maybe he can finally taste Sicheng cooking and giggle discreetly while the younger looks for him in confusion for help. And Ten. He can forgive Ten. He would be worried if Kun has been too cold in his prison cell or if he was eating enough with them gone. Yangyang would finally have a home and can go back to school to live a normal life.

Maybe he can finally see everyone again. 

As one. 

As a family. 

BANG

Kun didn’t feel anything. Not a bullet. Anything. Instead, he felt a wet substance stain his uniform. He looks down and gasps in horror when he notices Yangyang’s prison shirt stains a crimson red the size of a bullet right where his heart lays. 

“Let him die in your arms. Less of a mess for me to deal with”, the guard says with a hubristic tone. Before Kun could fight him, the former places his gun back in his leather. He looks at the pair one more time and smirks as he whispers “unlucky 7”. He scans his card and watches the light go green before walking out the door, an eerie silence following after the guard’s disappearing footsteps. 

Kun felt Yangyang buckle under his own weight and Kun lunged slightly to catch Yangyang as they both sank onto the littered, scuffed-up concrete floor uncomfortably against their chains. Yangyang’s head thumps weakly against the floor as his weakened breaths fill-up the noiseless hallway. The younger grips onto the front of Kun’s shirt with his bruised hands as he cries feebly into his older brother’s chest. 

“Gege. H-Hurts”, Yangyang softly whimpers out. Kun shushes him as he runs his hair through the younger's matted bloodied hair as he tries to comfort him. He helps the younger lay on the floor gently as he examines what they did to him. Bile rose his throat and he felt extremely nauseated when his finger was painted red when he traced over the bullet wound gingerly. Tears build up in his eyes as he leans his head against the younger’s forehead, his heartbeat dancing rapidly in his chest in contrast to the younger’s dying heart. He has been through this over and over again. Now here he is reliving the nightmare yet again. A nightmare that keeps him up all through the night of the coldest nights of snowy Seoul. He holds the younger in his shackled arms as he kisses his temple. 

“Gege is so sorry”, Kun whimpers out. He lets the first tears fall as he lets out a choked sob. Yangyang reaches out and softly wipes the tears of the crying elder, accidentally spreading some blood onto the former’s cheek. 

“Don’t be sad when I go to heaven with the other geges. Okay? I’ll make sure there are all your favorite flowers when you come to visit me and the others”, he says as he smiles softly. Kun sobbed violently. He couldn’t stand it. He cries into the younger’s dying heart as he thumps lightly to hopefully bring more life to Yangyang. 

“N-N-No doesn't say that please”, Kun sobbed violently. He couldn’t stand it. He cries into the younger’s dying heart as he thumps lightly to hopefully bring more life to Yangyang.   
The latter begins to choke slightly as his breath becomes raggedy. His hand goes into his pocket and pulls out a bracelet Kun gave him many years ago when they were first thrown into this hell. They swore they could get out of here and run away to another country where they can start fresh as a family. Together. Maybe Kun should do CPR. Xiaojun tried it on Sicheng and it worked for a bit the first time they overdosed him on medication. 

He was so deep in his internal monologue, he didn’t notice Yangyang clumsily clamping the bracelet around him, the little flower charm hanging prettily against Kun’s bruised shackled right wrist. 

“I-I love you Kun-Ge. Don’t be too sad”, Yangyang chokes out quietly before he grows quiet and becomes motionless, the life in him finally draining from his normally bright-brown eyes as he grows limp against Kun’s arms. 

“Yangyang!”

A deadly silence greets him back. 

Kun cries loudly as he tries to shake him, feeling himself lose control as he hyperventilates and clutches his chest. No, he refuses to believe he is all alone. He can’t be. 

“Yangyang! Please!”, Kun wails in hysterics as everything around him goes more and more blurry. He throws himself on top of the younger’s decaying body. He found it harder to breathe by the minute as he wails in angst as he stroke’s the younger’s blood-filled hair and whispers sweet nothings that the Yangyang will never hear again.

He lost all 6 of them. Every single one of them. Kun couldn't save them. He was all alone. All his 6 brothers were safe in heaven while he was the last one standing, barely hanging on to the dying memories. He harshly reaches up and rubs his tears on his face blinding him against his porcelain skin, sniffing. His fingers ghost over the frigid, golden metal of the bracelet as he shakes in ache and yearning. 

“Oh, Yangyang”. 

Before his mother passed away, she always said when someone you love becomes a memoir, those memories become a treasure. All Kun can do is life in those warm memories in the cold, bitter winter of his room. Alone. 

His once 6 flowers now withered away and flew away in the wind while he remains the only one in the field of thorns and weeds. 

_________________________________________________

“Kun!”, an unknown voice yells out quietly as Kun slowly blinks his eyes open. The inky darkness of nothing but the little string lights that look like little stars on a beautiful, empty night in Seoul. He feels his heart palpitate sickly against his chest as he swallows with difficulty. Sweat runs down his temple and his clothes stick to him uncomfortably. He felt like he was 6 feet underwater and everything around seemed to block out like the white noise in a slow-mo movie.

He looks around him to see the poster of WayV smiling down at him next to him. A portable black piano sits elegantly in the corner underneath the string lights. A silver decorum photo frame of him smiling brightly at the camera while the other person in the frame kisses his cheek playfully next to all his bottles of essence and cologne. 

He was in his room. 

Why is he there? Wasn’t he supposed to be in a prison cell? Where’s Yangyang and the others?

He heard something near him rustle and irrational fear took over him almost immediately. He closes his eyes and he clutches onto the fur blanket on top of him. He tried to get up but he felt a warm hand push him down gently. A warmth was placed against his chest and rub comforting circles against his tightening, racing chest. He tries to suppress the chills cascading down his clammy back. He begins to cry into the blanket as he tries not to make any noises as the absurd part of him tries to eat him alive with crippling fear. 

“D-D-Don’t hurt him, please. Hurt me instead”, he whispers as his tears stained his porcelain skin and dripped down his chin onto his sheets.

“Baby! I’m not gonna hurt you! I promise you! It’s okay Kun, it’s me!”

Something near him and a dim light illuminated throughout the room, revealing the person behind the mysterious voice. 

It was Taeil. 

Taeil was hunched over on top of him with a very worried look painting across his winsome features. His hair was ruffled and it looked like he was woken up from his sleep as his alertness contrasted the somnolent tiredness in his puffy eyes. The older male was wearing a pair of overly large baby-blue bear pajamas that Kun quickly realized was his. That’s right. Taeil came over the night after having dinner with him and the other way members. He really was home. But what about the others?

“Gege, the others. Where are the other boys? Where’s Yangyang?”, Kun asks softly in a whisper, his voice betraying him as it shakes in trepidation. He dreads the answer as he grips on tightly to Taeil’s clothed forearms. Taeil can sense the panic in Kun and reaches over with his fingers to push the Chinese male’s sweaty bangs out of his eyes and rub his shoulder up and down in comforting strokes. 

“Breathe, Kun. They are all sleeping down the hallway right across from us, just like you should be, honey. Remember? You wish them all goodnight after Yangyang came running into our room and climbed into your arms when Hendery and Xuxi were chasing him”, Taeil smiles softly at the memory as he runs his hand through Kun’s damp, messy hair. 

Kun’s memory starts to come back to him as he remembers how Yangyang ran into his arms and used him as a human shield against a fuming Hendery. His laughter meticulously reverberates into his ear. Next to him were a crackling Xuxi and Xiaojun with a camcorder filming the whole pandemonium. Ten and Sicheng stood in the hallway and shook their heads fondly at the youngsters’ antics. Taeil kisses him on the temple as he smiles brightly at his grumbling significant other. 

Yangyang was perfectly breathing and alive. And so were the others. They are all alive and with him. 

Relief overwhelms him and a whole wave of emotions crashes over him as he collapses against the mattress and presses his hand against his mouth. His chest heaves up and down dangerously fast as he tries to muffle the loud sobbing escaping him. His tears fell down his face as it traced down his face and kissed him behind his ears before fading into his hairline. His vision became blinded with his tears as he felt himself grow more hysterical. 

“Taiyi-Ge”, Kun whimpers out brokenly as he reaches out for his gege. Taeil felt his heartbreak into a million pieces when he heard the younger’s voice quiver dolefully and Kun’s watering doe-like eyes. 

“Oh, Kun. Baby. it's okay, Baobei. I'm here now. It's just a bad dream. Don’t cry~”, Taeil coos gently as he lifts the blanket and climbs in. He gathered the distraught younger and engulfed him tightly. The younger sobs loudly into his shoulder, burying his face into Taeil’s firm chest. The aroma of the Cinnamon and sweet Vanilla filled his nostrils as he claws at the back of the Taeil's shirt, scared that if he let go, the man would leave and never come back too. Taeil softly rocks hum back and forth as he wipes his astray tears away, whispering endearments into Kun’s ears. 

“Do you want to tell me, sweetheart?”, he queries gently while kissing the bridge of Kun’s nose affectionately. Kun thinks about it for a moment before he buries himself deeper into Taeil’s neck. The older man waits patiently, humming an old Chinese tune he heard Kun sing all the time when they first started dating while stroking the younger’s hair lovingly before Kun takes a quivery breath. 

“We were on the Turn Back Time set and I was in prison by myself except Yangyang. I saw everyone else die and I tried to save them, but I couldn't, Taeil-Hyung. They tried to hurt Yangyang and I got out of my cell. T-They shot him instead of me before I could fight them off. He gave me the little flower bracelet I got him for his birthday before he…..he passed away. H-H-He died. Gege, I let him die. Oh my god! I-, Kun finishes in dejected sobs as Taeil shushes him and kisses the latter’s head tenderly, hugging him tighter. He waits to speak until Kun calms down a bit. The younger opt to trace Taeil’s milky skin, his sobs turning into little sniffles and hiccups as he lies across the former’s lap. 

“Baby, thank you for telling me. Listen to me, sweetheart. Everyone is all safe and at home. All 6 of your babies, the other 16 and me. You are here with your big dysfunctional family. You are here with me, not in the prison. You are safe here with everyone else”, Taeil says softly as he cradles the whimpering younger. A smile ghosts his lips when the younger looks up at him with his reddened cheeks and red nose like a lost kitten. He couldn't help but think how adorable Kun looked. He bends down to kiss the tip of Kun’s nose. He lifts up Kun’s chin gently as he closes the gap between them. He tastes the saltiness of Kun’s tears and the cherry flavoring of his chapstick. Kun melted against his lips and closed his eyes as they moved their lips in a lazy harmony, entangling his hands in Taeil’s silky hair. When they broke their kiss, Taeil thumbed his tears away and rested his forehead against Kun’s with fondness. 

“I love you, Kun”

“I love you too, Ge ”. 

They stayed like that for a while. The clock behind them ticks like a soft metronome. They both bathe in each other’s warmth. Taeil wipes the rest of Kun’s tears on his tear-stained face as he kisses each of Kun’s constellations of moles, whispering “I love you” after each one. Drowsiness finally took over Kun as he cuddled against Taeil. He felt his eyes closing as he succumbed to a dreamless sleep once again, falling asleep in Taeil’s arms.

Taeil smiles when he feels the younger’s steady breath slowly on his neck and his chest rises up and down gently. Taeil sighs contentedly as he rests his head on top of Kun’s and closes his eyes as he kisses the love of life’s temple tenderly. 

“You're safe in my arms, baby”.

**Author's Note:**

> hi everyone! I hope everyone is doing well and is keeping safe during this pandemic! 
> 
> It's been a while since I posted anything lol. I promise that I am still working on some new exciting chapters for both "Take me under" and "You are my soulmate, remember" so please look forward to that! College has been eating me alive and I have been so burned out and mentally exhausted so I truly apologize. I will hopefully get back on my grind once the semester slows down a bit and I'm not having anxiety attacks almost everyday lol. I will continue to try my best and work hard to become a better author for you and myself. I can only improve from here so if you have any constructive criticisms and thoughts, please let me know! 
> 
> Please make sure to take care of yourselves ~
> 
> So with that being said, I hope you guys enjoyed this and thank you again so much for the support! I'll see you in the next one!
> 
> Cheers! 
> 
> -ASC ❀◐⌣◐


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